


House Calls

by thedevilchicken



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Inappropriate Behavior, Inappropriate Use of Ekon Senses, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Examination, Medical Kink, Medical Procedures, Object Insertion, Post-Canon, Shame, Teasing, Very brief mentions of past child abuse, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:21:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21821146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Jonathan goes to check on Sean Hampton. When he finds him, he sees a little more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Sean Hampton/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100
Collections: Flash Fuck: Round One (2019)





	House Calls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).



He's wearing a white coat. 

It's not often that he does these days, though there's been one hanging from the coat stand by the door to his room since he first took up residence at the Pembroke, what now seems like an age ago but is much more accurately just a handful of months. He's still working there, though he's had offers from elsewhere now it's more widely known that he's returned from the war. He's been approached by several quite prestigious institutions, both at home and overseas, but he's turned them down. He'd like to say that his polite rejections are the result of loyalty to his most recent employer - Edgar has, after all, both intentionally and rather less so, taught him many things about the workings of this new world that he now inhabits. But he suspects that Edgar Swansea is not the reason why.

He would like to say his rejections stem from concern for the health of his mother, but the plain fact of the matter is he knows he cannot help her, and she still believes her son is dead; he can't quite manage to convince her that she's wrong, perhaps because he's not sure it's something he believes himself. Or he might say he wishes to stay for the patients instead, both within the Pembroke's walls and out of them, but Dorothy Crane still has her clinic and he's far from being London's only doctor. There are many reasons why he might wish to stay, but he doesn't know quite which of them - if any - is the truth of it. 

Tonight, what he knows is he's wearing a white coat because he would like to think that it will help him act appropriately. But Sean Hampton is standing in front of him, naked, waiting, and frankly: it doesn't feel appropriate at all. 

It began a number of weeks ago, after what happened had happened and the frenzied air had finally dissipated from the streets. There were no more roaming packs of Skals, no Ekons lurking, and the Guard of Priwen had returned to the shadows in order to regroup. The nights weren't precisely safe as a result, of course, but Jonathan had never known London to exist in a state of perfect safety. 

Perhaps that was the reason for his visit to the night shelter; he remembered some of the people there and he hoped he'd find them safe in spite of London's many dangers. As he approached, Jonathan could see with his ever-improving Ekon senses, that the shelter was very near deserted. He could see rats scurrying outside the walls, and Lottie Paxton cleaning with a broom, and two men sleeping tucked up underneath several layers of blankets to try to keep the winter chill at bay. He greeted Lottie and she didn't seem displeased to see him; she didn't have a lot to say, but she did at least seem well, and happy for the others that the doctor had returned. She took him to an elderly woman with a wounded arm that he cleaned and dressed while she thanked him and thanked him, and then, when he was done, he set about the task he now understands he'd come there for: finding the shelter's director.

At first, he couldn't find him, but then he brought his other senses into play and through the door into more private quarters, he could see him. More accurately, he supposes, he could see his blood, and all the veins and arteries that carried it within him. He could see him sitting there, on the far side of the wall, where Jonathan supposed his bed was. And he could see him moving. He could see precisely _how_ he was moving. And, oh God, he knew exactly what was happening. He shut off his blood sense and he turned his back abruptly. 

He didn't turn away because he felt embarrassed to see him that way; the fact was, he'd seen a great deal more as a physician and clinician, as a doctor engaged in general practice and as a surgeon in the war. He turned away because he truly hadn't intended to intrude. He'd simply been looking for him, to check on him like he might any of his patients, even if the odds were Sean would never experience a particular need for traditional medical treatment in his life again. And somehow it had never quite occurred to him, in his admittedly limited time spent in his current state of being, that he might catch someone in the act of masturbation. Least of all Sean Hampton, though as he stood there afterwards, outside the shelter, flexing his hands at his sides as though the action might serve to purge him of the memory, he wondered why it was he thought _especially Sean Hampton_. Sean was a man just like any other, or at least he'd started as a man. His faith and his past should not have made it seem so very far-fetched that he might feel the usual urge toward physical release, least of all alone and behind closed doors. He no doubt believed he was alone, at least. He had no reason to believe that he was being spied upon, albeit accidentally. 

_Accidentally_. It was an accident that first night, yes; seeing him like that, even merely as an image drawn in blood, was an accident. But Jonathan took a breath and walked away and later, in his own room at the Pembroke with his own door closed and locked, he took off his coat and he pushed up his sleeves and he leaned down over his workbench. When he tried to work and found he couldn't, when he stripped down to his underwear and stretched out on his bed to sleep as dawn approached, when he found sleep didn't come and his mind was reeling, he could no longer call it an accident. He wrapped one hand around himself, beneath the sheets, and stroked till he was gasping. It would have been a lie to say he'd never thought of him like that before, because the night he'd fed Sean from his wrist had opened up his eyes to the possibility of attraction. It was, however, the first time he'd thought to act on it.

It was several nights later by the time he returned to the shelter. He ran into Giselle Paxton arguing with her sister in the grounds outside as it tried to snow, but otherwise the streets seemed remarkably quiet. And when he tentatively reached out to his blood sense in order to locate the shelter's founder, after a cursory physical check had failed to turn him up, he regretted that choice instantly. 

Sean was sitting at his bed. More accurately, he supposed, Sean was kneeling by his bed instead of sitting on it, but Jonathan understood his posture wasn't due to prayer. He had one forearm resting there along the edge of the bed and his forehead pressed against his arm. And Jonathan could see, in the bright, thrumming red of his blood, that Sean's cock stood erect and one hand was wrapped around it. He knew precisely what was happening in just one glimpse. 

He should have shut off his Ekon senses, immediately and unreservedly. He should, at the very least, have directed those senses elsewhere. But the way that Sean moved was so very near hypnotic, like it had a kind of mesmerism to it all its own, and so Jonathan continued watching. With a further application of his senses, he could hear him, too. He could hear everything that happened in that room - the creak of the floorboards underneath Sean's knees, the jangle of his belt buckle as it hung open from the trousers he'd pushed down around his thighs, the faint squeak of the bedsprings as he pressed down hard with his arm against the mattress. He could hear the ragged hitches of Sean's breath and the slick sound of his hand on his cock as he stroked himself. And when Sean sat up straighter and he parted his knees wider, when he moved his arm from the bed and reached it back, when he slicked his fingers and pushed them up inside himself right to the knuckles, he could hear the quiet, private way he moaned. 

Truthfully, it had been some time since Jonathan had experienced any kind of physical intimacy - the last time had been in France some not inconsiderable number of months prior, and he would have liked to have blamed that fact for his reprehensible behaviour. Perhaps he could have told himself it was a function of his Ekon senses and the fact that he was still just starting to grow into them. It might have been his professional curiosity, his drive to understand the workings of these creatures of whose existence he had been, until so recently, entirely ignorant. Perhaps on some small level it was a mix of all those things together, but he supposes reasons for his actions mattered not nearly half so much as his actions themselves. 

The truth was, he watched. The truth was, he felt himself stiffen until his erection strained against the fabric of his trousers. He leaned against the wall in the deserted shelter with one splayed hand against the flaking plaster and when he closed his eyes, the only change that made was to draw the faint red veil of his own eyelids over what he saw, but he still saw. He slipped his free hand down between his thighs and squeezed. It made him shiver. Perhaps he had seen more than that as a physician, and he could have categorised his reactions to it in purely medical terms, but it was his most sincere hope that he would never react that way to a patient.

It was such a very simple thing to imagine himself inside that room with Sean. He could see himself there, going down on his knees behind him, on the rug over the floorboards there beside the bed. He could see himself shrugging off his coat into a haphazard heap and rolling up his shirtsleeves to his elbows as if readying himself for surgery. He could see himself spreading his knees to either side of Sean's calves and easing him back against his chest. He could see himself freeing his erection and pushing it up deep inside him, and tearing at his own wrist with his teeth so Sean could drink his blood while he was fucking him. He could see himself bite down at Sean's neck. He could almost taste the bright tang of blood filling his mouth. He could almost feel his body, and his breath, and every movement that he made. There was no art to it, and no artifice, no sense of showmanship like Jonathan had known once or twice before. And yes, it was simple to imagine himself there, involved, integral, but it would have been a great deal simpler if he hadn't wanted to. 

When he saw Sean finish, his hips bucking, back arched, his head thrown back, he almost came himself. Instead, he bit his hand to keep from shouting out; he bit deeper than intended, into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, and for a second he watched it dripping down his wrist, disgusted both with it and with himself. For a second, as he watched Sean through the wall, he could have sworn that he looked up at him. Then he sealed his mouth back over the wound and he sucked it clean, and then he quickly left the shelter. His erection had faded by the time he'd returned to the Pembroke, but a moment's thought on what he'd just seen brought on a resurgence that he should have been more than able to anticipate. The only small comfort he could find in it was that he had a microscope on hand to study his ejaculate for changes from the human norm when he was done. It didn't make his actions seem less sordid, but it did seem to lend them a rather ex post facto purpose.

Several nights later, he went back again. He told himself it had only taken him so long because there were still other districts that he visited, and Nurse Crane's clinic in Whitechapel had required his attention more than was usual, but he understood the truth of it was he found himself ashamed of the way that he'd been acting. Sean's privacy should have been precisely that: private, not subject to the casual invasions of a passing Ekon of his vague acquaintance, especially not one who had forced himself on him once already, in a manner he regretted even if he couldn't quite regret its outcome. Still, he believed he could swallow his shame. He believed he could go about business as usual.

When he arrived, the shelter was perhaps a little busier than usual; Lottie explained that word had spread a doctor sometimes visited, a proper one and not some backstreet sawbones, and he was one that didn't charge. It took his mind off the events of his previous two visits, as he spoke to the newcomers and dispensed appropriate medication where he deemed it necessary - in many cases, it was necessary indeed. And, once he'd made his rounds, he'd honestly quite nearly forgotten that he'd come there primarily to check on one man, not all of them. 

His priority might have almost slipped his mind but he had not, in fact, forgotten it: he searched for Sean. He hadn't seen him there, nor had he seen him earlier that evening when he'd visited Old Bridget and her rather sadly depleted flock; he engaged his blood sense as he stepped out into the rather chilly night and he saw him then, almost precisely where he might have expected to. Sean was in his room, with one hand pressed to its outside wall, one hand wrapped tight around his cock. And he was close, so very close by, just a few yards away, down the side of the shelter where the lights didn't reach, and it was so easy for Jonathan to slip that way unseen when what he should have done was slip away entirely. 

Sean's left hand was pressed against the bare brickwork at the other side of the solid wall and, after a moment, Jonathan reached up with his right hand and he fit his fingers there opposite the bloody image of Sean's, like they were standing palm to palm. As he watched, as he saw, Jonathan's left hand fumbled at his belt then pushed down into his trousers, but it wasn't quite right; he used both hands to push his trousers down just far enough to free his cock and then he stroked himself. He did it in time with Sean's strokes, at the other side of the wall, only inches away. He gasped when Sean gasped. And when Sean came, he came himself not long after. He came over his own hand, against the mossy brickwork in the chilly air, as Sean stood there with his forehead pressed against the wall. It was almost like he was there with him.

Afterwards, of course, as he walked away, he knew he shouldn't have done it. He'd known that during, too, but as he made his way back to the hospital, it seemed then somehow all the more apparent. He understood that Sean Hampton was an intensely private man, and what he'd done was a clear transgression of that privacy, even if Sean had no way to know it. What he'd done was take a liberty he should have never even thought of taking. It was a violation of Sean's trust, just a hair's breadth from forcing an undesired intimacy upon him, and he'd promised himself he would never do that again. He'd had no right to do it. None at all. The fact that he had said nothing positive about the character of Jonathan Reid. He supposed all that he could do was try to make amends.

The next night, far from shying away, he returned to the shelter. He'd told himself he wouldn't watch again, no matter what; he'd told himself he would go back there only to attend his patients. But when he stepped inside and found Sean there, in person, without the use of any of his myriad vampiric senses, Jonathan knew immediately that he'd been lying to himself. He'd told himself he wouldn't watch, but the surprise he felt in seeing him told him his intention had been to do exactly that. And if he'd had the sense that he'd been born with, that would have been his signal to beat a hasty retreat. The issue was that Sean had spotted him before he could execute a neat about-face and match back the way he'd come. 

Sean saw him. Sean came closer, smiling warmly and kindly though Jonathan could have sworn there was a glint of amusement to it at the edges. Apparently, the shelter's inhabitants weren't too perturbed by his rather altered complexion to turn down food and a bed for the night, because no one there seemed to notice anything amiss at all.

"Welcome back to my humble shelter, Dr. Reid," Sean said, and then he tilted his head just slightly. He stepped in closer, so no one else could hear when he continued, "Are you here to subdue me again?"

The question took him by completely surprise. He absolutely hadn't expected it, possibly because he'd expected that Sean would proceed very much as if nothing at all had happened between them and they didn't both recall a night when Jonathan had made him kneel on the ground and drink his blood. Evidently, however, they both did remember. And he meant to say no. He meant to say he'd come there to check on his health and that of the shelter's other occupants - he's still a medical man, after all, no matter what else he might be, so it might have even been convincing. But he flexed his hands at his sides, into fists and then back again. He took what he hoped would be a steadying breath as he caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth. 

"And if I am?" he asked. His tone of his voice was much steadier than he was.

Sean smiled wryly. He settled one hand at Jonathan's shoulder and leaned closer, almost conspiratorial. "Well, I suppose we both know you wouldn't be the first to do that," he said, lowly, and Jonathan's stomach turned because Sean was, of course, entirely correct: he understood the reference. 

"Forgive me," he said, disgusted with himself, utterly dismayed with his own behaviour, perhaps even more than he had been before because he wasn't entirely sure what had induced him to say such a thing. He pulled himself up into a stiff, formal pose, tall and ramrod straight as if standing to attention. He took a somewhat unsteady step backwards and away from him. "Forgive me," he said again. "I won't trouble you again." And before either of them could say another word, he used every scrap of speed he had in him to flee the shelter, and the docks, and return to his room at the Pembroke. He threw himself back into his work to distract from the rather bright sting of shame.

The following evening, he asked Nurse Crane if she might extend the clinic's services to the people of the night shelter, if he were to pass her a little extra funding and any medication that the residents might need; she agreed, and so a bargain was struck that would see Sean's people continue to receive the care they needed while Jonathan could maintain a much-needed distance. He'd caused quite enough damage there, he thought, and Old Bridget swore she'd let him know if Sean's condition began to deteriorate. She didn't seem to believe it would, and he trusted her experience to a degree, but Jonathan still found her promise reassuring; between them, they would ensure that a very good man did nothing to tarnish his good reputation, and his people would be safe as a consequence. Of course, the irony of it wasn't lost on Jonathan; he was much less than good himself, or so he'd lately proved. 

Jonathan couldn't say he missed the docks once he stopped paying frequent visits there, and he had enough to keep him occupied both in Whitechapel and around the West End where he still sometimes made believed he lived. In reality, he spent barely one day there in every ten, since it was so much more convenient to his research and his patients if he slept through the days at the hospital and awoke there at night, ready to work. 

When not checking on patients or engaged in surgery, Jonathan spent his time in research. Willing participants had proved hard to come by, though he wasn't entirely surprised by that - Old Bridget did her best with the remaining Skals but they were understandably reluctant to place their trust in him, and the Ekons of his immediate acquaintance were more reticent still. All he had to work with were ageing samples dating from the last days of the "flu", a sample of Elisabeth's blood that she'd provided before she'd left the country, and what little he'd persuaded Old Bridget and her flock to part with. His freshest samples always came from Edgar or himself, and though he'd made some progress, it had been a good deal slower going than he would have liked. It did, however, serve to keep him busy. He didn't want for occupation, though occasionally his mind did stray to things he knew it oughtn't.

It was weeks later when he returned from his rounds in Whitechapel to find his door ajar. Inside, sitting on his bed with a Bible open on his lap, was precisely the thought he'd been striving not to have; Sean Hampton was waiting for him. 

"What are you doing here?" Jonathan asked, as he closed the door behind him with something of a bang. 

"I hope I'm more welcoming to my guests, Dr. Reid," Sean replied, with a hint of a smile, and when Jonathan frowned it was more at himself than at him. He took a second to pull himself together, and to pull himself up straight. 

"I apologise, Mr. Hampton," he said. "You're very welcome, of course. I'm just surprised to see you here." 

He watched him close his Bible and set it aside on the neatly made bed. He watched him stand, with his cross hanging there neatly against his waistcoat. 

"What happened to calling me Sean?" he asked, mildly, though he was still smiling. 

"Under the circumstances, I thought a little less familiarity between us might be welcome." 

"Given our last conversation, I thought you'd be wanting more familiarity, not less." Jonathan winced. Sean stepped forward quickly and reached out to squeeze his arm. "I'm sorry, Dr. Reid. I'm only teasing you. As it happens, I think what you did might have done me a good turn." 

"How do you mean, exactly?"

"Well, I've no more need of corpses, for a start, and I'm grateful for that." Sean dropped his hand lower and squeezed by Jonathan's elbow, then let it drop back to his side. "It's like the blood you made me drink gave me a kind of...enduring satisfaction." 

"I'm pleased to hear that." Jonathan frowned. "But Mr. Hampton. _Sean_. Without seeming rude, can I ask why you're here?"

Sean chuckled. "It's not obvious?" he said. "I'm here for my checkup."

"Checkup?"

"Old Bridget tells me you've been trying to find Skals willing to be examined for some great scientific project or other." He smiled widely. "I'm willing. I'm here for an examination." 

And that is how he finds himself where he is now, in this godforsaken mess. Because he should have turned him away, but he didn't.

The first night, all he did was collect samples. He had him spit into a cup and he swabbed the inside of his cheeks and he drew blood from the crook of his arm once Sean had taken off his coat and rolled one sleeve up high enough for him to push the needle in. He took a few hairs, too, pulled them out by the root and Sean yelped and Jonathan apologised, but Sean just laughed it off good-naturedly. For not the first time, he suspected Sean might have actually been teasing him. For not the first time, he suspected he quite liked to be teased. 

He came back again a few nights later, so Jonathan could take more blood and perform what turned out to be an extremely cursory physical examination. He shone light in his eyes, had him read letters of various sizes in different lights from a placard placed across the room, and he peered into his ears and down his throat. He checked his reflexes and tested his strength. Then Sean took off his shirt and let him take a small sample of tissue from him with a scalpel; he dressed the wound after, carefully, gave it two small sutures to be sure, and then turned away to better hide the fact that he was licking Sean's blood from his fingers. 

"You know, I don't mind," Sean said. 

"Hmm?"

"What you're doing. My blood. I'm not blind, Dr. Reid, and I don't mind. It seems a shame to let it go to waste." 

And he really did sound like he didn't mind it, Jonathan having his blood in his mouth, tasting it on his tongue, almost shivering from it, which frankly made the situation all the worse. So he wiped the rest of the blood from his hands with a damp cloth that he set aside and then he turned back around to face him, after making absolutely certain that his mouth was clean. 

"I apologise," he said. "You have my word that I won't do it again." 

Sean chuckled. "Anyone would think I'd said the opposite of what I said," he told him, as he was pulling on his shirt again. "You're a strange one, Dr. Reid. Sometimes I just can't make you out at all." 

A few nights after that, he came back again. Sean took off his shirt so that Jonathan could examine his wound - it was very nearly healed, so he removed the stitches. He took a little more blood, and then gestured that he could put his shirt back on again. 

"Do you have more tests for me, Dr. Reid?" Sean asked. 

"Honestly, I'm not sure I have," he replied. 

"You've no more samples that you need to take?"

He could think of a few. The issue was, he found he couldn't bear to ask him for them, not given his own behaviour over the past few weeks. Not given the fact that Sean still didn't feel like his patient, let alone a test subject. Not given the fact that he still lulled himself to sleep with one hand around his cock and a bloody map of all Sean Hampton's veins inside his mind. 

"I have everything I need," he lied. "Thank you, Sean. You've been of very great assistance to my research." 

Sean smiled a faint but strangely knowing smile. "You know, you've never even had me take my clothes off," he said. 

"Were you expecting that?"

"I suppose I was." He shrugged his jacket back on again and started to button it up over his chest. "It doesn't seem like you've had all the use from me that you could have, Dr. Reid. And I doubt you'll find another Skal so willing to be poked and prodded in the name of science." He moved closer to where Jonathan was, where he was leaning back against his workbench so he could remain as far away as possible without seeming impolite. He squeezed Jonathan's shoulder, with a faint surge of Skal strength that would have made a human's bones creak, but they both knew Jonathan had ceased in his humanity some time ago. "I'll come by again tomorrow night. Just you ask yourself in the meantime if there's anything else that you might want from me." 

Sean left by the door that led to the fire escape and then made his way quickly down the path toward the sewers. For the first time, watching him go as he stood in the open doorway, it struck Jonathan what a risk it was that he was taking, coming there to see him. As an Ekon, Jonathan himself could pass as a rather pale but otherwise ordinary human man and blame it on his shift work at the hospital that prevented him from seeing daylight, or else he had the ability to persuade whoever might notice his condition by...other means. Sean, on the other hand, looked very much a Skal to those who knew and potentially rather sick to those who didn't. The Guard of Priwen's watch on the city wasn't quite so vigilant or ever-present since Jonathan's last run-in with their commander-in-chief, but that didn't mean it was by any means safe for a Skal to roam the streets. Jonathan had to wonder if that meant something, and potentially a great deal more than that Sean was lacking sense. He knew he wasn't, so there must have been something else at play.

"So, Dr. Reid," Sean said, when he returned just as he'd said he would. "Have you devised any new use for me?" He raised his brows. "Should I take my clothes off now?"

"Please do," Jonathan said, and he turned away to examine a sample or two under his microscope before he could see Sean remove more than his jacket. That was the choice he'd made, waiting, considering his options, simply because it wasn't like him at all to allow an opportunity to further his research pass by due to his own discomfort. And so he put on his white coat over his shirt and waistcoat and he told himself he would remain professional. Detached. Observant. 

"What now?" Sean asked, and Jonathan turned around to face him. He kept his gaze high, aimed just over Sean's right shoulder, so he wouldn't have to meet his gaze or look at any part of him before he steeled himself to.

"Just...remain still, please," he replied, after a moment. And he tried to keep his touch clinical, but the things he'd seen when Sean had believed himself alone inside the shelter were far too present in his mind for that. He tried to remain professional, but that night when he'd made him kneel was right there, as if he'd torn his wrist just a moment ago and not several weeks instead. 

He examined the wound he'd incised by Sean's collarbone and found it was completely healed. He examined the site where he knew the Skal who'd turned him had bitten, and he could find no trace of it at all. He recorded his reactions to pinpricks and palpations, When he ran his hand down and wrapped it around Sean's cock, he flinched and Jonathan released him quickly. 

"It's just your hands are cold, Dr. Reid," Sean explained, "and you might have given me some warning." Then he took Jonathan's wrist in both his hands and guided his hand back down between his thighs again. It struck Jonathan as an oddly intimate gesture, but he turned the thought away; he eased back Sean's foreskin and took a swab from the tip of his cock that he'd just exposed, and then he returned to his workbench. He told himself the white coat helped, but it didn't. 

"I'm afraid I must ask you for a sample," he said next, as he turned back to him, and he passed him a small glass specimen jar. Sean took it from him, and that's where they are now: Jonathan is wearing his white coat, and Sean is holding a jar that he doesn't need to ask the purpose of. He nods, and he turns naked toward Jonathan's workbench. He puts the jar down, and he leans down against the bench's work-worn surface. 

"Do you need to watch?" Sean asks. "You know. For science."

Jonathan's mouth twists hard. "No," he says. "No. Thank you. That won't be necessary." And Sean clucks his tongue, not that Jonathan understands the meaning of it. 

Several moments pass. He doesn't need to look at him to know precisely what he's doing; he remembers how that looked, albeit much more bloodily, and his mind paints him a rather elaborate picture as he occupies himself with tidying the room. It's still strange for anyone else to be here, given that it's his space, where he works and where he sleeps, but soon Sean will stop coming and he'll be perfectly alone again. Frankly, it's not as reassuring a thought as he'd believed it would be. 

"Doctor, would you have any..." Sean hums, as if he's searching for the word. "It's just it's going to chafe if I keep going like this." 

Jonathan understands. He returns to the workbench, studiously avoiding looking at Sean himself, and uncaps a small jar of petroleum jelly that he places within easy reach. 

"Will that do?" he asks, and he turns away, but not before he's seen Sean dip his first two fingers into it. 

"Very well, thank you," Sean replies. And Jonathan has no wish for it to chafe but the slick sounds that follow make finding concentration rather difficult. 

"Doctor, I'm sorry to bother you," Sean says, after another moment. "I just wonder..." He hums again, and he drums his unoccupied fingers on the wooden bench. "Sometimes it makes things easier if I've something I can, you know. Put inside." 

Jonathan feels his insides clench and mentally he curses his profession. He's found over the years that people feel so very much at ease saying things to doctors that they would never dream of telling someone else. He has no wish to know that Sean sometimes enjoys anal stimulation, though he supposes he's seen him do just that with the application of his fingers, but he goes to the desk and he rummages distractedly, and comes back with a surprisingly thick steel medical dilator. He sets it on the workbench at Sean's elbow. He turns away before he can see him pick it up. 

"Will that do?" he asks, trying very hard not to imagine what uses Sean might have for it. 

"Very well, thank you," Sean replies, and Jonathan thinks he almost sounds amused. And when he hears him sigh, he knows precisely what he's doing. Honestly, he would have liked to have an excuse to see it, the rounded tip of the thing all slicked with petroleum jelly and pushing into him, but he knows it doesn't do to dwell on it. Though, several long moments later, several moments he fills with the tidying away of papers as if the shuffle of them might mask the sound of what it is that Sean is doing, he hears a clunk of metal against wood. 

"Doctor, might I trouble you again?" Sean says. His voice sounds tight. Jonathan has regrets. 

"What is it, Sean?"

"This...probe. It's just it's a bit on the cold side. Could I persuade you to lend me a hand?"

"I'm not sure I follow." 

"Well, not a whole hand," Sean says. "I suppose it's more like a couple of fingers." And Jonathan understands with a burst of perfect, awful clarity. "You're a doctor, Dr. Reid. I'm sure you've dealt with worse, and it won't take long." 

Sean is right about one thing: he has indeed dealt with worse. He's dealt with substantially worse. And, of course, he's right about another thing: he is indeed a doctor. So he turns to him, and he frowns to himself as he crosses the room toward him. He tries not to look too closely at the way he's bending down and leaning there against his workbench or he suspects he'll never quite be able to look at it the way he used to. He tries not to pay too much attention to the way Sean's bare toes press to the floor, or the faint shine of lubricant against his skin. He stands behind him, reminding himself that it needn't last for long. He reaches past him, and he dips his fingers into the jar. He slicks his fingers liberally. And then he uses his free hand to part Sean's cheeks and expose his hole. His stomach clenches. His ridiculous, traitorous cock gives a twitch. 

His touch should be clinical, but it isn't. He rubs his slick fingers against the already slick rim of Sean's hole, between his cheeks. He lets his fingertips circle it, firmly, and he feels a low stab of desire to bend down low and tease him with his tongue instead of just his fingers. Instead, he pushes in with his first finger; he feels Sean's body pulling tight around it, relaxing, pulling tight again, as he acclimatises to the intrusion. He gives him a moment and then pushes with a second finger, slowly. And Jonathan looks, he watches, he sees the place where his fingers penetrate him, where Sean's hole is opened up around them, and the truth of it is that he wants more than anything to slick his cock and push that in instead. But he doesn't. He lets Sean rock back against his fingers instead, lets him use them as he strokes himself, and tells himself it won't be awkward after. He's a liar, though, and he knows it. 

Then Sean goes still. He pauses. "Can we stop pretending yet?" he asks. 

"Pretending?"

Jonathan begins to pull his hand away, but Sean reaches back with the hand that he's been using all this time to stroke himself and catches Jonathan's wrist. His grip is tight and he doesn't hesitate at all; he pushes Jonathan's fingers back deeper inside himself, then holds them there. 

"Pretending you're not imagining your manhood inside me instead of your fingers, Dr. Reid," Sean says. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"You know, you're really not a very good liar." 

"Sean, I--"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

Jonathan frowns. "You said you came to help me with my research." 

"And so I did, but do you know why that is?"

"I must admit I'm rather at a loss."

Sean lets go of his wrist and Jonathan lurches back, pulling his fingers from inside him. Sean turns, and he hops up to sit on the table with his legs dangling over the edge and his erection jutting up obscenely. There's a shine to it, like it's just come out of someone's mouth, and Jonathan would like to make that true. 

"You know, I wasn't sure the first time," Sean says, as he sits there with his hands resting neatly down against his thighs. "I thought that it might just be in my head. I was sitting there in my room and I was, well..." He gestures to his flushed cock and Jonathan takes an ill-advised glance down at it before he can think to stop himself. He winces and he drags his gaze back up. "And I had this feeling. This strange, unnerving feeling, like I wasn't quite alone. I imagined it was you, Dr. Reid. And I'm not too proud to admit I liked it, thinking you could see me. You're a handsome man and you've been good to me and mine. The thought that you might like it..." 

Sean chuckles, then he moves. He trails the tips of his fingers up the underside of his erection and then squeezes just a little at the tip. Jonathan swallows, wondering precisely where his usual confidence has fled to.

"The second time, I knew. I could smell your blood at the end. Did you cut yourself?"

Jonathan takes a shaky breath. "I'm afraid I bit myself," he admits. He lifts both his hands and he taps the place he'd bitten on one hand with the fingers of the other. "Just here. I was trying to be quiet." 

"You know, I wish you'd come in." Sean's smile turns wistful, and for the first time perhaps a little self-conscious. He dips his hands down and he squeezes at his balls with one, and wraps the other one around himself. "I really thought you might come in that last time. I even left the door unlocked to make it easy for you, but then you went outside instead." Sean tilts his head and frowns. "Where did you go? Were you far away?"

Jonathan grimaces. "I was at the other side of the wall," he says, before he means to say a single word at all. "We were two feet apart, Sean, if that. I was right there." 

"Then I teased you, what I suppose might have been a bit too strongly, and you haven't come back since."

"Yes, that seems to be the case." 

"That's why I'm here. You stopped coming to me, so I've come to you." 

"Sean..."

"I mean, I'll understand if it's just that you were swept along by the turn of things and it's not me that interests you at all. And I'll understand if what happened to me is too much for you, but I made my own peace with it a long time ago."

"It's not that." 

"I know we're very different people. And it's a natural physical reaction, being--"

"Stop." 

"Stop?"

Jonathan goes closer. Quickly, he goes closer. A short pause and he reaches up to take Sean's face in both his hands; the workbench is just high enough that he has to look up at him instead of down, the difference in their heights reversed for once, but he doesn't mind at all. 

"It won't do, you know," Jonathan says, as if Sean's sudden uncertainty has brought back his own confidence tenfold. "I won't have you thinking it was just some abstract force of nature. It was you, Sean. The truth is, I would have found it a great deal easier to look away if it hadn't been you." Then he steps back. 

"Come down," he says, and Sean does that; he hops down from the bench back to the floor. Fully dressed and still in his boots, Jonathan's height seems even greater than usual, and Sean seems shorter but somehow not small. 

"You know, that white coat doesn't suit you," Sean says, and Jonathan laughs lowly as he takes hold of it down by the hem and tears. The buttons scatter across the room, where to he neither knows nor cares, and then he throws the coat away. He spreads his arms. 

"Better?" he asks. 

"Much," Sean replies. And honestly, he does feel much more like himself. 

"Will you turn around?" he asks, and Sean nods. He turns. He leans. And Jonathan steps in close. He knows he shouldn't, but he does; he unbuckles his belt and he pushes his trousers down just to mid-thigh. He tucks his shirt and waistcoat up under his arms so that he's bare from his abdomen to just above his knees and when Sean glances back at him over his shoulder, the look on his face tells him everything he needs to know about whether he should stop or not. Sean's look says he shouldn't, so he doesn't. He's more than happy to take his cues from him. 

He'd slick himself but Sean does it instead, with a lopsided smile on his face like he just can't believe it's happening, and when his fingers stroke him, Jonathan is at least completely sure it is. Sean bends down again and Jonathan edges closer. He parts Sean's cheeks and rubs his own stiff length between them, then he thumbs the tip down into place and pushes. Sean groans as he gives, but it's from pleasure and not pain; Jonathan, more than most, would know the difference.

Neither of them lasts. It's almost funny, Jonathan thinks; chances are that if they'd met while they were both still human, they might have lasted longer, but the fact is he feels quite like he's been half erect for month now and when his hips grind forward and his release takes hold, when his unnatural grip splinters the edge of his workbench and he spills himself pushed deep into Sean, it's a glorious and blessed relief. Sean pushes back and groans and comes, pulling tight around him. And they sink down, awkwardly but not unpleasantly, onto their knees on the floor. Jonathan's manhood is, remarkably, still in him, and Sean leans back heavily against his partially clothed chest. Jonathan loops his arms around Sean's waist and takes Sean's hands in his and it's perhaps not exactly comfortable, but it's far from being not. 

Then Sean turns just far enough to look at him. He turns just far enough that he can see his almost mischievous smile. 

"Next time you come to the shelter," he says, "why don't you just knock at my door?"

Jonathan chuckles. Then he kisses him, for the first time and he hopes very much not the last. He kisses Sean's mouth with his fingers in his hair and when Sean's fingers rake his neck and he returns that kiss, he tries not to think what a fool he's been; a knock on Sean's door and so much time might have been saved. He supposes, however, that if nothing else, they both of them have time. 

He's not a particularly good man, he thinks, though he does try to be; Sean, on the other hand, might actually be good enough for both of them, but he suspects there might be more to him than meets the eye. He looks forward very much to finding out. 

And if that's not a reason to retain his employment at the Pembroke, he's honestly not sure what is.


End file.
